Rules in Defiance

by Nichole Severn

  “Well, now you’re trying to hurt my feelings.” Elliot offered her his hand, the other cinched around the duffel bag he’d extracted from the back seat. He was giving her a choice. Giving her safety if she wanted it. “It’s a lot bigger than it looks.”

  His easygoing smile and confidence melted through her. Of course he had confidence. Wasn’t that what con man stood for? She’d known he had a past. Everyone did. But could she trust him to keep her safe? Trust him to help her uncover who’d framed her for Alexis’s murder? That was the question. Despite his revelation about the con he’d pulled in Iraq—a con that’d landed him in prison—her gut already knew the answer. Waylynn stretched out her hand, sliding her fingers up his palm. Rougher than she’d expected. Calloused, as if he’d been working with some kind of machinery or maybe out here in the woods. Desire exploded through her with a single touch, just as it had back at the police station. “It better be.”

  A breeze whipped through the surrounding trees, shaking them into a frenzy as Elliot reached for the door. He led her inside, a rush of heat dissipating the goose bumps pimpling along her arms. A combination of wood and spice wrapped around her as the main living space came into focus. She glanced toward him, unsure what to say.

  “What’d I tell you?” Elliot released her hand, taking his body heat with him, and motioned to the unbelievably modern space with both arms wide. He set the duffel bag on the floor, then collapsed backward onto the single couch, fingers interlaced behind his head. For as small as the cabin looked from the outside, the layout worked well for the limited space. A fireplace, complete with a stock of firewood, lay dead ahead. Off to the left of that, a single countertop with bar stools on one side and a kitchen sink and stove on the other. No dining table. Not enough room. A short hallway led to what looked like a bathroom with a set of stairs leading to a space on the second level. The one and only bedroom. The decor fit the location. Wood, wood and more wood. Just as she’d expect from any other cabin stashed in the wilderness, but the granite countertop and brightly colored accents brought the entire room into the modern era. It suited Elliot. At least, what she knew of him.

  “And you thought this would be awkward.” He compressed his mouth against a smile.

  Surprise pushed through her. “I never said that.”

  “You didn’t have to.” He swung his legs over the side of the couch and pushed to his feet. Closing in on her, he leveled that dark gaze on her and every cell in her body responded. “I read people for a living, Doc. It’s what makes me good at my job.”

  Heat flamed up her neck and into her cheeks. She brushed a strand of blood-matted hair behind one ear and fought the urge to cross her arms. What else had he read about her? “In that case, I can’t promise you I won’t let you down when you look at me too closely.”

  “What are you talking about?” One distinct crease deepened between his eyebrows as he shifted his weight between both feet. “You haven’t let me down.”

  “Someone is framing me for Alexis’s murder.” Waylynn interlaced her fingers. She used her hands to speak a lot of the time, but right now, all she wanted to do was close in on herself. To hide. From whoever’d killed her assistant. From the man standing in front of her who knew her better than any other person in her life, but she didn’t want to lie to him. Ever. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been accused of killing someone.”

  Seconds slipped by. Maybe a full minute. She couldn’t read his expression, didn’t know what he was thinking. Was controlling what others read in his body language part of being a con man, too? “Say something. Please.”

  Elliot ran a hand over his beard, tugging on the end. “Tell me what happened.”

  The same intensity she’d witnessed back at the police station consumed his expression. “I was fifteen. My father...” She pushed back the memories, but her pulse skyrocketed. “He deserved what happened to him. The cancer had already affected my mom, and police concluded she didn’t have the strength to do what had been done, so I became the next logical suspect. They took me out of school, arrested me and attempted to try me as an adult, but in the end, I was acquitted. Not enough evidence. They couldn’t find the gun that’d been used to kill him.” The Beretta 92 pistol he’d kept stashed away in the linen closet of her childhood home. “Same as now.”

  That gut-wrenching smile overtook his stubborn expression, and she struggled against the gravitational pull she experienced every time he came around.

  “What are the odds someone has been accused of murder twice in their life?” he asked.

  “In my experience? High. Normally? Zero.”

  He stepped into her, setting her chin between his index finger and thumb as he had in her apartment. Her insides turned to molten lava. Hesitation gripped her hard as he studied her. “Whoever’s doing this is counting on you taking the fall for Alexis’s death.” He released her, the tingling sensation spreading behind her sternum fading. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

  All she had to do was lean forward—just a bit—to press her mouth against his. What would he taste like? Feel like?

  A dull ringing reached her ears. Waylynn blinked to clear the last few seconds from her mind. She rushed to retrieve her phone from the pocket of the grungy sweats Officer Ramsey had lent her. The screen brightened with the laboratory’s number. “This is probably my boss. I should answer.”

  Elliot swept his arms wide and bowed before retreating toward the door and, just like that, the intensity in his body language disappeared. As though it’d never happened. “By all means, use whichever part of this room you prefer. I’ll grab the gear from the truck.”

  She stared after him as he closed the door. A small burst of disbelieving laughter escaped up her throat. No. Nothing was happening between them. That hadn’t been a connection. It’d been her body’s automatic reaction to a stressful situation. She and Elliot were friends and she’d keep it that way. They didn’t have a future together. There was no future with her.

  The phone vibrating in her hand brought her back into the moment. She swiped her finger across the screen and brought it to her ear. “Dr. Hargraves.”

  “Waylynn, I can’t believe it.” Dr. Matthew Stoker’s frantic tenor intensified the stress lodged between her shoulder blades. “The police were here at the lab. They wanted copies of your reports to match your handwriting—”

  “It’s fine, Matt.” Waylynn ran a hand across her forehead. Dr. Matthew Stoker had been her boss for close to ten years. He’d given her the opportunity to conduct her research and convinced Genism’s board of directors to fund her projects. He was on the path to put the lab on the map for genetic research all before he hit forty. The entire company depended on him. But getting dragged into a murder investigation threatened his promising future. “You were doing what you had to for the best of the company. I don’t blame you for handing the reports over. I’m sorry they came to you.”

  “Don’t worry about me. Are you okay?” Static reached through Matt’s end of the line. Or was that the sound of broken glass in the background? “I called the company lawyer for you. Blake Henson told me you’d been arrested, but they couldn’t keep you in custody. Where are you?”

  “I’m...” She didn’t know what to say. She’d found her assistant dead in her bathtub and all the evidence Anchorage PD had recovered pointed at her. Someone had framed her for murder and the only reason she’d come out into the middle of the woods with Elliot was for her own protection. Should she trust Matt with the location?

  The front door clicked open.

  Elliot hauled another duffel bag inside, tossing it onto the floor, and her awareness of him rocketed to an all-time high. The zip-up hoodie he wore did nothing to hide the bulk in his arms and across his chest. The air in her lungs stilled. She’d never noticed his physique before.

  What had changed?

  “Waylynn?” Matt asked over the line. />
  She took a deep breath to restart her system as Elliot maneuvered around her in the small space and headed for the back of the cabin. His clean, masculine scent worked deep into her lungs, became part of her, and she had the feeling that was only the beginning as she studied the rest of the tiny space. He’d brought her here to keep her safe from whoever’d killed Alexis, but what if it was him who needed protection from her? “I’m somewhere safe.”

  “Good. Keep it that way, because there’s something you should know.” The tension in Matt’s voice failed to drown out the tinkling of shattered glass over the line. “Someone broke in to the lab. Somehow a fire broke out and... Everything, all of your research from the past ten years... It’s gone.”

  Chapter Three

  “Good news. I found an unopened box of peanut butter Oreos stashed under the bed.” He tossed the package a few inches into the air, then caught it. Her favorite guilty pleasure. Elliot pounded down the small set of stairs and rounded the corner into the main living space from the back of the cabin.

  The color had left Waylynn’s cheeks, her knuckles white around the phone in her hand. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end at the sight of her. Forget the cookies. Tossing the package onto the counter, he pulled the weapon from his shoulder holster beneath his sweatshirt and clicked off the safety, ready for war. “Tell me whose ass I need to kick.”

  “Somebody doesn’t just want to frame me for Alexis’s murder. They’re destroying my life.” Her voice barely reached across the small space. Confusion deepened the color in her ocean-blue gaze. “Elliot, my research... It’s gone. Everything I’ve worked for—for the past ten years, is gone.”

  His gut tightened. Hell. That’d been her life’s work, her career. And it was gone? Elliot didn’t believe in coincidences. First, her assistant’s murder in Waylynn’s apartment. Now this. She was right. Whoever’d set her up to take the fall was ensuring she’d never get back up. He scanned the perimeter from the nearest window, then centered back on her, approaching slowly, and lowered the gun. Locking on the phone still clutched in her hand, he holstered his weapon. “Who was on the phone?”

  “Dr. Stover. Someone broke in to the lab. There was a fire.” Her voice hollowed. She somehow went even paler. Her attention snapped up as he closed the distance between them and everything inside him heated. The delicate column of her throat flexed on a swallow. “The fire department thinks it was arson. There were traces of accelerant all over my desk. Chemicals we keep in the janitorial closets.”

  He denied the urge to wrap her in his arms. While he hadn’t taken her on as an official client—yet—the same rules applied. No getting involved with clients. “Just yours?”

  She nodded but refused to let go of that damn phone. “Yes. Someone burned it all. My handwritten notes, my digital files, a decade’s worth of studies and genetic testing... It was all in my desk or on my computer. What am I going to do?”

  “What about a backup?” There had to be something salvageable.

  “Genism doesn’t allow employees to have backups other than the company server, but Matt said that’s been tampered with, too.” She swiped at her face, shoulders rising on a deep inhale as though her emotional reservoir had run dry. “We can’t bring any foreign devices into the lab, take files out or save them to the cloud.”

  Of course they couldn’t. That would make too much sense. And, suddenly, Elliot couldn’t keep his distance from her any longer. Reaching for her, he slid his fingers up her arms. Calluses caught on her smooth skin, the rush of the scent of geraniums was intoxicating. “Waylynn, I’m sorry. I know how much your work meant—means—to you.”

  It was her entire life, her career. Her ticket out of a rough childhood, which he’d most recently learned included a murder accusation. She’d moved on from that life, had obviously worked hard for it. College, graduate school, becoming one of the foremost experts in the country on genetics. And in the flash of a flame, it was gone. Didn’t seem fair.

  “Does this place have a shower?” she asked.

  “Bathroom is past the kitchen on the right.” Elliot hiked a thumb over his shoulder and turned slightly to give her a line of sight. Despite the bloody tint to her blond hair, the smear of her eyeliner and mascara, and the fact she’d lost everything that mattered to her, Waylynn held her head high.

  “Take your time. Clean towels are hanging behind the door,” he said.

  A single nod was all he got in response as she pulled out of his grasp and headed toward the bathroom.

  The lock clicked into place and he didn’t waste any time. Whoever’d framed her for murder had started the fire in her lab. He was sure of it. The timing. The opportunity. They both lined up. The SOB might be dangerous, but Elliot was worse. Because they’d never see him or his team coming.

  Extracting his laptop from one of the black duffel bags on the couch, he flipped it open and took a seat at the counter. Framing Waylynn to cover up a murder was one thing. Alexis’s murder could’ve had nothing to do with Waylynn, but his next-door neighbor happened to make the perfect scapegoat with her sordid past. Coming after Waylynn’s research? That was personal. Someone was hunting her.

  The unsub—unknown subject—had to know about her father’s murder accusation in order for the frame job to stick. Except those records had been sealed because Waylynn had been a minor at the time. Which meant the bastard was either connected to the case or had premeditated pinning the murder on Waylynn by looking for something incriminating. He couldn’t discount any possibility. Not when it came to keeping her alive.

  Elliot glanced toward the bathroom at the sound of water hitting tile. It’d take a few minutes for her to wash off the blood. Focusing on the screen, he pulled up the internet browser and typed in her name. His finger hovered over the enter key. Of all the people he’d investigated, of all the chances he’d had to dig into her past, he’d kept Waylynn’s off-limits, respecting her privacy. He had an entire team of coworkers. Former SEALs and Rangers, an ex-National Security Agency consultant, a military investigator, Blackhawk Security’s forensics expert and a psychologist. He’d worked with them for over a year, trusted them with his life, but Waylynn was different. Special. Forbidden.

  And yet someone was trying to hurt her.

  He hit the button. The screen brightened as headlines filled the page. Top stories included the massive progress she’d made in the bioengineering community, but one stood out among the rest. “Rhinebeck, NY, fifteen-year-old acquitted of father’s murder.” Elliot read through the article. Waylynn had spent over three weeks in county lockup after her arrest on school grounds. Never gave a statement, never tried to blame the crime on someone else, or offered an alibi. Police had questioned her cancer-stricken mother at the time, but ultimately concluded Nora Hargraves didn’t have the strength to lift the missing handgun used to kill her husband in cold blood. Without the murder weapon, the prosecution had no other choice than to release the teen despite ample motive and opportunity. Her mother had died during the trial.

  Hell. In the year they’d been neighbours, he’d known Waylynn had lost her mother when she was younger, and about the foster family who’d taken her in until she’d turned eighteen, but he hadn’t realized the circumstances. Elliot leaned back in his chair to break up the tightness in his throat. He’d been on his own since he was fourteen. Voluntarily. Waylynn had everyone taken from her in a three-week span. He glanced toward the bathroom.

  But none of this narrowed down a suspect pool. Nathan Hargraves had been shot nine times and died from massive blood loss. The forensic pathologist who’d signed the death certificate hadn’t gone into more detail other than a final conclusion reading “homicide” and a note that reported a mere five dollars in cash had been found on the body at the time of the autopsy.

  No other family. No friends who’d seemed too beat up about her father’s death. No reason for someone to come after Wayl
ynn. He’d have to do some more digging, but if Alexis’s murder and the fire at the lab had anything to do with Waylynn’s past, he couldn’t see it. Which meant their suspect had learned about the trial, but only planned to use it to secure an arrest fifteen years later. Would’ve worked, too. If police had recovered the gun.

  Elliot ran a hand through his hair, then rested his elbow against the counter. She hadn’t told him any of this. In the year they’d been neighbors, she’d never mentioned her parents, her hometown, the fact she’d been in the foster system at the age of fifteen. Then again, how often had he talked about his parents? His hometown?

  “All right, Alexis Jacobs, show me what you’ve got.” He rolled back his right shoulder, working through the stiffness that still paralyzed the scar tissue around the bullet wound there. If the unsub wasn’t connected to Waylynn’s trial, then someone wanted the assistant dead for a reason. What had Waylynn said when he’d found her in the bathroom this morning? Alexis wanted to meet because she’d found something within the study they’d been conducting at the lab. But with all of Waylynn’s research destroyed, he doubted the assistant’s discovery hadn’t been destroyed with it. He scanned through Alexis’s social media pages. Three different sites. Hundreds of pictures. But this one... Elliot stopped scrolling and straightened. The redheaded beauty with freckles had taken a photo of herself a few days before her death, showing off what looked like a new tattoo of a Q with a heart on her wrist. The Queen of Hearts. But it was what was behind her that urged him to lean closer to the screen. A black external hard drive sticking out of the victim’s purse.